1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3901

Under the cover of artillery fire, the vanguard of the Haihan Army hurriedly landed on the riverbank. Since there were no defenders outside the city at this time, the landing process went smoothly, and they easily captured several docks without encountering any resistance. However, they dared not delay for a moment. After assembling and regrouping, they immediately rushed towards the Zhangjiang Gate, which was shrouded in smoke and dust, with their siege equipment.

From the riverbank where they landed to Zhangjiang Gate, there was only a distance of a few dozen feet. It can be said that most of this area was within the range of the city's firepower. Once the cannon fire on the river stopped, the defenders would immediately reappear on the city wall, and the Haihan Army below the city would become live targets.

The space and time left for the attacking side to carry out the siege operation were extremely limited, while they faced enormous risks. This is why Ding Baoguo was not initially worried that the Haihan Army would make Zhangjiangmen their main target.

Ding Baoguo underestimated the Haihan Army's familiarity with amphibious landing operations. A landing environment with readily available docks and no resistance measures was extremely easy for the Haihan Army. Before the city's defenders could react, they had already arrived at the gates of Nanchang.

The troops rushing towards the city gate did not carry ladders, because if they forcibly scaled the city walls at this point, the artillery fire supporting them would have to be suspended, and the attacking soldiers would have to face close combat with the defenders on the city walls.

Even if the Haihan army had more advanced weapons, in the relatively confined space of the city walls, the defenders, with their overwhelming numerical superiority, could still inflict considerable casualties on the attackers.

Unless absolutely necessary, Shi Chengwu did not want his elite troops to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Ming army. His plan was to follow the standard operating procedure of the Haihan siege warfare, destroy the city gate by means of explosives, tear a large gap in the city's defenses, and use this as a breakthrough point to completely eliminate the defenders' superior defensive advantage.

Over the past thirty years, the Haihan Army has repeatedly succeeded in siege warfare using this tactic, breaching many fortified cities. Moreover, with the improvement of Haihan's explosives manufacturing technology, the explosive power has become increasingly stronger. What used to require thousands of kilograms of explosives can now be achieved with only one or two hundred kilograms of high explosives.

However, in order to ensure success on the first attempt, the engineers carried more explosives than expected for this mission to blow up Zhangjiangmen.

When the engineers arrived outside Zhangjiang Gate with their demolition equipment, the artillery fire from the river deliberately avoided the area around the city gate to prevent friendly fire.

The Ming army lookouts on the city wall also observed this new development and immediately alerted the city's defenders, instructing them to take advantage of the reduced enemy artillery fire and quickly return to the city wall to block the Haihan army's attack.

However, the city's garrison was still gathering near the city gates and had not yet climbed the city walls when they were hit by an iron bomb from the sky, causing chaos.

In fact, the hot air balloon had been hovering over Zhangjiang Gate for nearly an hour, but it had not made any move during this time. As a result, the defending troops on the ground focused their attention on the offensive on the river and almost forgot that there was such a powerful weapon of justice hanging overhead at any moment.

The hot air balloon carried only two bombs. Its target was not important institutions in the city, but rather to delay and disrupt the city's defenders' counterattack during the siege, thus buying time for engineers to plant the explosives.

Meanwhile, the engineers outside the city gate were racing against time, drilling holes in the city wall and installing explosives. At the same time, someone nearby set up a protective shield the size of a door to shield them from the stray arrows flying from the city wall.

Another hundred or so soldiers positioned themselves about ten zhang (approximately 33 meters) from the city wall, aiming their rifles at the top to provide cover for the engineers' work. They would not hesitate to open fire if anyone appeared on the wall. Later, more troop transport ships arrived, quickly expanding the landing force to several hundred men. The sturdy city wall of Nanchang, two to three zhang (approximately 6.6-9 meters) thick, consisted of a solid adobe inner layer and a heavy outer layer of bricks. If explosives were only placed outside the wall and detonated, they would at most create a large crater, far from enough to cause the entire section of the wall to collapse.

Laying the explosives was both a technical and physically demanding task, so the sappers had to minimize the construction time. Once the Ming army returned to the city walls, their position would be exposed to their very eyes.

For this siege mission, Shi Chengwu specifically applied to the Ministry of Industry for several small rock drills. These rock drills use small gasoline engines as power and are usually only used for field exploration operations by the Mining Department of the Ministry of Industry.

Due to its complex manufacturing process, this thing was a limited number of treasures even within the mining company. It was only through Shi Diwen's coordination from the rear that Bai Kesi signed off on the transfer of a few units to the front lines in Jiangxi.

During the ceasefire negotiations between the two armies a few days ago, the engineers had already received specialized training in their use, and with the assistance of civil engineering experts sent by the Ministry of Construction, they designed a blasting plan and calculated in advance the number, depth, direction, and amount of explosives to be fired into the Nanchang city wall.

The advanced machinery used by Shi Chengwu was something that even friendly forces in other directions outside the city might not have heard of, let alone the defending troops inside the city. Therefore, although the defending troops had noticed that a small group of Haihan troops had advanced to the city, the unique siege tactics employed by the enemy were something they could not have anticipated.

The engineers' primary target was naturally the city gate. After two days of bombardment, the original wooden gate was already dilapidated, gradually revealing the gate opening that had been filled with earth and stones. This temporary filling was naturally far less sturdy than the thick city wall, and rock drills could quickly make holes several feet deep in it.

Amidst the continuous rumble of cannons, the sound of rock drills drilling holes could hardly be heard inside the city.

The defenders who dared to peek out to observe the situation below the city were met with a barrage of fire from outside. After several men were hit, the remaining soldiers dared not show themselves again and could only cower behind the battlements, waiting for the Haihan army to launch a ladder attack before taking any action.

Ding Baoguo had been keeping a close eye on the battle situation in all directions. When he heard that the Haihan Army had crossed the river and landed outside Deshengmen and Zhangjiangmen, he couldn't help but feel a little flustered, thinking that he might have really made a mistake in judging the enemy's main attack direction.

However, the continuous artillery bombardment from the east and south made it difficult for Ding Baoguo to decide to shift the focus of defense to the banks of the Gan River. He could only urge the garrison at Deshengmen and Zhangjiangmen to be vigilant and on guard. Once the Haihan army began to storm the city, they would use smoke signals to signal the reserve troops inside the city to rush to the battlefield and join the battle.

The garrison near Zhangjiang Gate made several attempts to regroup and return to the city walls, but these attempts were interrupted by bombs dropped from hot air balloons and mortar fire from outside the city, forcing them to abandon the idea for the time being.

Although the defenders on the city wall had observed small groups of Haihan soldiers carrying out construction work at the city gate, they could not figure out their intentions.

The pile of earth and stones in the city gate probably weighs over 100,000 jin (50,000 kg), and a few people can't move it in a short time. The garrison only needs to wait until dark and the Haihan army withdraws from the battlefield, then they can let people down from the city wall to fill it in again.